SUTTON, Chief Judge. A Kentucky jury found Ricky Lee Welch guilty of several offenses in 2017. He filed a federal habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction in 2023 after exhausting the Kentucky post-conviction process. Federal law imposes a one-year statute of limitations on federal habeas petitions seeking relief from state convictions. That limitations period, however, does not run while a prisoner’s timely application for post-conviction relief is “pending” in state courts. After a state trial court rejected his motion for post-conviction relief, Welch filed a motion for belated appeal six weeks after the 30-day deadline to file a notice of appeal. This apparent untimeliness led the district court to hold that the federal tolling provision did not apply to the time he spent pursuing the state appeal, barring Welch’s federal petition. We disagree because Welch’s appeal fit into a well-established state-law exception to Kentucky’s timeliness rules. Because Welch satisfied this exception, his petition remained “pending” and thus tolled the one-year clock. For this reason and others elaborated below, we reverse the district court’s contrary conclusion.

A majority of the Judges of this Court in regular active service has voted for rehearing en banc of this case. Under Sixth Circuit Rule 40(d), “[a] decision to grant rehearing en banc vacates the previous opinion and judgment or order of the court, stays the mandate, and restores the case on the docket as a pending appeal.” Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the previous decision and judgment of this Court are vacated, the mandate is stayed, and this case is restored to the docket as a pending appeal. The Clerk will direct the parties to file supplemental briefs and will schedule this case for oral argument as soon as possible.

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. The Maumee River winds its way through Northwestern Ohio, passing through farmland and, eventually, Toledo, before emptying into Lake Erie. In recent years, high levels of phosphorus in the Maumee and connected waterways have led to harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie during the summer and fall. In 2023, following earlier litigation and in accordance with the Clean Water Act (“CWA”), 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq., the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (“Ohio EPA”) proposed a Total Maximum Daily Load (“TMDL”) for phosphorus in the Maumee and connected waterways, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“U.S. EPA”) approved. Plaintiffs, believing the approved TMDL insufficient to address their concerns, sued U.S. EPA under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), claiming that the approval was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law. The merits of the Maumee TMDL and Plaintiffs’ APA challenge are not before us today. The Appellants in these cases are an assortment of agricultural industry groups (“Associations”) and the Maumee Coalition II Association (“Coalition”), each of which supports upholding the TMDL and seeks to intervene as defendants alongside U.S. EPA and Ohio EPA.1 The district court denied their motions to intervene, finding that neither had met the criteria for intervention of right, and that the relevant factors weighed against permissive intervention. We affirm the district court’s denial of the Coalition’s motion to intervene. But because the district court erred in denying the Associations’ motion to intervene of right, we reverse in part and remand for further proceedings on the merits.

The Carroll County Grand Jury indicted the Defendant, Dale Maurice Teague, with unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (Count 1), possession of marijuana (Count 2), possession with the intent to use drug paraphernalia (Count 3), and possession of a prohibited weapon, to wit, knuckles (Count 4). After the trial court granted a motion for judgment of acquittal on the marijuana count, the jury convicted the Defendant of the remaining offenses, and the trial court imposed an effective eighteen-year sentence. On appeal, the Defendant argues: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his convictions for the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a prohibited weapon, knuckles; (2) the State violated two pretrial orders that resulted in the improper admission of hearsay and prior bad act evidence; and (3) the trial court erred in denying his initial motion to suppress and in denying his motion to reconsider the motion to suppress. After review, we affirm.

The Defendant was charged with first degree premeditated murder after shooting and killing the victim during an argument. The Defendant was tried before a jury, and the trial court instructed the jury on the defense of self-defense. The jury convicted the Defendant of the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to five years of incarceration, suspended after the service of eleven months, twenty-nine days. In this direct appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred in allowing an eyewitness to offer opinion testimony, simultaneously infringing on the Defendant’s constitutional right to not testify, and that the trial court erred in ordering the Defendant to serve a portion of his sentence in confinement. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Tommy Lynn Hollingsworth, appeals the order of the trial court revoking his probation and ordering him to serve the remainder of his six-year sentence in confinement. Upon our review of the record, the parties’ briefs, and oral arguments, we affirm the judgment of the trial court as to the denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss and the revocation of the defendant’s probation. As to the disposition of the defendant’s probation, while we affirm the judgment of the trial court to order confinement in case number 96-195, the trial court erred in imposing that disposition in case number 96-193, which had expired.

Defendant, George Harris Patterson, III, who was described at oral argument as a First Amendment Auditor, was indicted for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and assault on a first responder after an incident at a Davidson County Post Office. A jury found Defendant not guilty of resisting arrest but guilty of disorderly conduct and assault. Defendant appeals, raising several issues. He challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, the constitutionality of the disorderly conduct statute under the First Amendment as applied to him, the trial court’s failure to give a special jury instruction, the trial court’s admission of a piece of evidence and testimony from a postal employee, and the trial court’s failure to grant a mistrial. He also insists he is entitled to cumulative error relief. After a review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The trial court terminated a mother’s parental rights to two minor children after finding that the mother abandoned the children through failure to support and subjected the children to severe abuse. The mother appeals to this Court, and, discerning no error, we affirm.

Members of the TBA Young Lawyers Division,
As many of you are aware, the TBA is currently considering the Tennessee Supreme Court's request for comment concerning seven issues that all concern the future regulation of legal education and the legal profession. Review the TBA's Legal Access & Regulatory Reform resource page to become familiar with the issues at stake. The TBA had held town halls on these issues and has also released a survey to its membership. The TBA YLD Board also addressed some of these issues at our last board meeting.

My goal is to ensure that the voices of the YLD are known when the TBA is crafting its official comment. To this end, the TBA YLD Board's Executive Committee has crafted four short polls that I am asking you to complete in a relatively short timeframe. I would assume that you care about each of the issues in the four polls; however, you are not required to complete all four polls (or to answer every question within). The four polls are:

• TBA YLD Poll Concerning the Future of ABA Accreditation of Law Schools
• TBA YLD Poll Concerning Interstate Reciprocity and Alternative Pathways to the Bar
• TBA YLD Poll Concerning Paraprofessionals Providing Certain Limited Legal Services
• TBA YLD Poll Concerning Non-Attorney Ownership of Law Firms

The polls will stay open until Sunday, March 15 at 5 p.m. CDT. Again, these issues are too important to not have the opinions of the YLD made known to the TBA and to the Tennessee Supreme Court. 

Thank you very much in advance.

Sincerely,
Alex McVeagh
TBA YLD President

A news item in yesterday's issue of TBA Today highlighted a new expungement process for certain cases in the Shelby County Criminal Court. The court has asked that TBA clarify that the new automatic expungement process is initiated only after the petitioner requests it in court. The new process will allow the order to be signed by all relevant parties in the courtroom, rather than requiring the petitioner to file elsewhere. No expungements will be processed without the petitioner’s or their attorney’s express request. The new process will start March 23. It will apply only to cases that have been dismissed or identified as nolle prosequi with no costs.